💡Tips to crush the JLPT Listening test💡

My approach to solve each of the exercises (including examples!) and general tips to maximize your changes of success in this section💪

Oct 21, 2024

Hello again!

Following up on my previous post, today I wanted to share with you everything I learned while preparing for the JLPT’s listening section 🎧. I wrote this with the hope that it will help those of you getting ready for the December exam!😉

In this new post, I share some general tips to keep in mind during the test. I also break down the five types of listening exercises you will face on the exam, explaining the approach I followed to solve them to boost my chances of getting the answer right.

Whether you’re aiming for the N3 or taking the N1, these tips will certainly be of help to you! 🙌

Let’s get started then 🔥

Information you should keep in mind

It’s vital to be familiar with the format of the exam so you don’t waste time figuring things out during the test. I highly recommend practicing with 新完全マスター読解 or doing mock tests to get used to it ✏️.
You only hear each passage once.
The listening section is continuous, with only a few seconds to answer before the next passage starts playing ⏳.
The examples played at the beginning of Exercises 1 and 2 are always the same. Use that time to read the multiple-choice answers instead of listening to the examples.
There is a 30-second break after Exercise 3 with some surprisingly cheerful music🎶—use it to take a deep breath and regain your concentration.

General advice

Take notes 📝 of the question being asked for all but the shortest passages! Write down the gender of the person you should focus on and include a keyword like “what,” “when,” or “how.”
Do not be afraid to use your mother tongue for note-taking! 🔡Write your notes as fast as you can, using the language that comes first to your mind. If you are using Japanese, write in ひらがな or romaji. Do not try to show off you kanji knowledge skills in the test because it will just make you lose precious time!
Writing down the pronunciation of an unknown word you did not understand can help you recognize it when it comes up again.
While listening, use symbols like a tick (✔️), cross (✖️), or tilde (~) for "unsure" to mark off each option as they’re mentioned. This will help you eliminate wrong answers and make a quicker decision.
Once you are done with a question, regardless of whether you could answer it well or not, forget about it and move onto the next one. Staying stuck thinking about previous questions will only make you lose points! 🚫
Never leave an answer blank! Wrong answers do not make you lose points, so take your best guess.
As soon as you have heard all options, mark your answer on the answer sheet. For question 2, if an answer is really obvious, you may mark it before the end.
Finally, do not forget to bring a snack 🍿! Believe me, you will be exhausted after doing the first part of the test and you brain will thank you for it.

Tips to solve each exercise type

Exercise 1: Task-based comprehension

In this exercise, you will not have time to read the multiple-choice answers, so I suggest that you read as much as you can of the first question while the example is playing.
A common question is is what one of the speakers needs to do first, so pay attention to the tasks already completed, who is assigned what, and any time-related keywords 🗓️.
To help you remember the keywords, I recommend you underline the most important words for each option to to notice them more easily while the audio plays.
Since in this type of question the options are mentioned in the same order they are written, it is easier to follow the flow of the conversation and mark them off using your symbols as you hear them.
Finally, as soon as you have found out the correct answer, go read and highlight the next question’s options! ⏩

Exercise 2: Point comprehension

This exercise is similar to Exercise 1, except that you will hear a sentence with the context and the question first, followed by extra time ⏳ to read the answer choices. Take this time to quickly skim over the answer options and highlight the different keywords.
This time the options might be mentioned in a different order from the printed one, so be ready for this.
If you did not understand the exact sentence where the answer was, do not panic—sometimes you can eliminate wrong options based on what you do understand, so don’t give up and stay focused until the end! 💪

Exercise 3: Topic Comprehension

These might seem intimidating at first since you need to understand the entire passage, but trust me, they’re easier than they seem. The key is to stay focused and not let your attention drift 🧠.
To solve this question, write down keywords (remember, the language does not matter!) that are mentioned and just listen to the conversation like you would listen to a video or a TV program 👀.
There will be no time to take notes on the options, so just mark each one with a symbol indicating whether they are correct or not. Once all the options have been given, immediately mark down on the answer sheet the one you felt the most confident about.

Exercise 4: Short answer

You will hear two lines spoken by two actors, and your task is to figure out what the next line should be.
Formality 💼 plays a big role in this part, so pay close attention to the sentence endings.
Be careful not to laugh out loud during this part—some of the answer options can be pretty ridiculous and they have already made me chuckle in the past 😂🙈.
A lot of times, intonation 🔊 will give away the answer (agreement, surprise, disagreement, etc.).
Write four vertical lines and the question number at the start. As you hear each option, mark a cross, a tick, or a ~ (for unsure). Don’t overthink it—trust your instinct! 🧐

Exercise 5: Integrated Comprehension (N2 & N1 only)

This exercise is divided into two parts:

Part 1: You’ll hear a description followed by a conversation 🗣️ between two or three people. Your goal is to understand what they ultimately decide to do. No answer options are printed, so you will need to pay close attention to the options while they are read.
Part 2: After listening to a general information passage, you’ll hear a conversation between two people. The question will ask what each of the two of the participants decides to do.

For this part, I always write a table with several columns:

The first column should be for the answer options 🔢. For Part 1, you will fill these in as you listen. For Part 2, you can reuse the printed options as your first column.
The second column is for general information about each option. Write down keywords as you hear them, even if it is just how they sound phonetically ✍️.
The remaining columns should be very narrow, as they will only be used to mark with symbols what each of the participants thinks about each option. For Part 1, mark the gender 🚻 (and maybe role) of the speakers as they appear. For Part 2, you’ll usually have one male and one female participant, so you can note them down right away.

I hope these tips will help you improve your JLPT listening score! 🤗

Remember, the key to do well on this section is to be familiar with the format of the test and to take good notes. If you are feeling a bit lost on how you can enhance your listening skills, be sure to check out my previous post for resource recommendations and tips to find time to practice this skill 😇.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to leave me a comment and I will do my best to answer them 😁.

𝙽𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚊の旅’s Substack

Discussion about this post